Free The Guinea Stamp by Alice Chetwynd Ley

other men glanced at him with an answering smile.
    “Have you forgotten our Navy, ma’am?” he asked. “They squat like cats at a mousehole, only waiting a chance to pounce!”
    “But—they sometimes leave their posts, do they not? Augusta, you have told me how they frequently lie up in Torbay, when the weather is bad in the Channel, or they have occasion to put in to port for some little thing or other,” finished Lady Lodge, uncertainly.
    Lady Feniton nodded. “We have several times entertained the ship’s officers at Shalbeare House,” she said. “And the village of Tor Quay is as full as it can hold with their wives and families.”
    “That’s so,” agreed the Colonel. “Of late years, the Fleet’s taken to lying up in Torbay in preference to Plymouth. The Sound’s a dangerous anchorage in bad weather—Torbay’s more sheltered.”
    “I can vouch for that,” said Lady Feniton, pleased. “Shalbeare House is at all times and seasons sheltered from the worst of the winds; and I doubt if our climate can be excelled in the whole of England.”
    “Though by some it is thought to be too relaxing,” murmured her husband.
    He so rarely spoke, that everyone gave him full attention when he did so. Looking nervously around, he saw that he was the focus of every pair of eyes in the room. He fidgeted uneasily in his chair, coughed, and fingered his somewhat crumpled cravat. His wife eyed him severely.
    “How should you know, Feniton, when you are seldom outside that library of yours?” she asked, scathingly. “What kind of judge of air can you set yourself up to be, I should like to know? If I do not find the air of Torbay relaxing, I am sure you could not!”
    He made an apologetic murmur, and subsided.
    “Grandpapa was not expressing his own views, however, but those of others,” interposed Joanna, quietly.
    “I do not require you to tell me, Miss, what your grandfather means! I suppose he is very well able to explain himself, should he choose to do so. But we are interrupting your account, sir”—turning to Colonel Kellaway—“You do not believe, then, that there is any real danger of a landing being made hereabouts?”
    “Hardly likely, milady. London must always be the main objective, and Devon is too far removed from the capital. Ireland is our real heel of Achilles in the West.”
    “The last venture there could scarce encourage them to try again in that quarter,” interpolated Sir George.
    “But what of this tunnel that they are said to be building under the Channel?” asked Lady Lodge, apprehensively. “Only the other evening, at the Winterbournes’, I heard a rumour that the French have engaged a mining expert on the venture, and that it should be completed by Christmas!”
    Lady Feniton threw her friend a look of contempt. “Fiddlesticks, Letitia! It’s a mercy that everyone is not as credulous as you! Pray, how do you suppose that the workmen should manage to breathe under water, to begin with? You’ll be suggesting that men might fly, next, I suppose!”
    This remark served to draw Sir Walter out of the abstraction which usually claimed him in his wife’s company.
    “There is no saying to what limits man’s ingenuity may reach, Augusta. You appear very confident that men may not breathe under water: have you never chanced to hear of the Nautilus?”
    Lady Feniton repeated the name, for once at a loss.
    “It is a special kind of vessel, invented by an American,” explained Sir Walter, patiently. “It is capable of underwater travel, and men have been known to stay shut up in its interior while it was submerged for several hours without any ill effects.”
    “Oh, yes!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Fulton—Robert Fulton—that’s the chap’s name! Bit of a gimcrack, though, ain’t he? Had it from a Naval officer of my acquaintance that they carried out some trials of another invention of his—sometime in September, if my memory serves me—whole thing was a wretched fiasco!